Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
CHASTITY
“ A nother glass?” Matteo asked as I slid the empty vessel back onto the table.
“I think that’s enough.” I shook my head. “For both of us.”
Over the course of the most delicious meal in memory, we’d drained the first bottle of Bordeaux. The deep fruit essence of the wine paired perfectly with the rich sauce and melt-in-your-mouth feel of the slow-cooked beef. I’d savored every sip and bite.
But now, at the bottom of my third glass, I was starting to feel a little tipsy.
Nothing like last night, though.
Just a pleasant, floaty kind of feeling that warmed my cheeks and allowed me to thoroughly enjoy the evening instead of worrying about the consequences we’d have to face for Matteo’s show of bravado.
“But there’s another bottle just waiting for us,” he reminded me.
“So, take it home,” I said with a lazy shrug before resting my elbows on the table. Leaning in and propping up my chin on my clasped hands, I asked, “And stop trying to get me drunk.”
He pushed back in his seat, stretching his arms out along the back of the booth and relaxing in a languid way that made him seem perfectly at ease in his body.
“Believe it or not, that’s not my intention,” he said. “I just enjoy seeing you take pleasure in the finer things in life.”
Ha !
I’d meant for that laugh to stay internal. I really did. But it seemed the wine had loosened more than just my uptight nature. It had also affected my reserve.
His head fell to the side, sending his dark hair tumbling over the side of his brow in a rakish fall.
“You don’t believe me?” he said.
I shook my head.
“Do you want to hear what I really think ?” I asked with a courage that didn’t exist three glasses ago.
“It’s the only thing I want,” he replied.
“Fine,” I leaned in even closer. So close that my chest pressed against the edge of the cloth-covered table. The move caused my breasts to push together and swell even higher over the already low neckline of the dress. “I think that, just like every other man in the world, the only pleasure you’re after is your own.”
Matteo smiled.
A breathtakingly devilish smile that made my already fluttering wine-drenched heart take to the sky.
“You don’t actually believe that,” he said, sounding as confident as always.
“Yes, I do.”
“Then let me ask you this—is this an idea you came up with all on your own or one your father planted in your head?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because what I think is that your father has spent years filling your head with visions of how scary the ordinary world can be so you won’t fight back when he sends you upstate and locks you away in a crumbling old church.”
“That’s not fair.” I shook my head, defending my father more out of habit than any real sense of indignation.
“No, Chastity. What’s not fair is losing years of your life because of your father’s control issues.”
“So says the man who used our dinner date as a stage to prove he has control, not just over me, but the whole island of Manhattan.”
My heart pounded in my chest as I spoke. I’d never been in this heated of an argument before. I’d never had the chance.
The consequences if I so much as raised my voice to my father were swift and brutal. Even a hint of perceived annoyance on my part would end with stinging slaps and ringing ears.
But with Matteo, everything was different.
He didn’t seem the slightest bit upset at our charged conversation. If anything, he seemed to be enjoying it. An unshakable grin still pulled at his lips.
Of course, it was a little annoying that my argument about his controlling behavior was totally undermined by the fact that he was tolerating my verbal jabs.
But instead of throwing that mistake of logic back in my face, he simply let out a gentle, rumbling laugh.
“You missed your calling,” he said. “With your talent for arguing, you should have been a lawyer.”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?”
“Far from it.” He shook his head. “I mean it. You’d make an excellent defense attorney.”
Would I?
I’d never thought about it. Never even imagined which way my life would’ve gone if I’d had any say over its direction.
It was an intriguing idea.
That appeared to be Matteo’s secret talent—planting intriguing ideas in my head…then sitting back and watching me with those gorgeous dark eyes as those seeds took root.
“You’re a bad influence,” I told him. “You know that, right?”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Mostly by my father, no doubt.” I’d meant it as a joke, but the second the words were out of my mouth, I realized how heartless they sounded and instantly wished I could take them back. “I’m sorry. That was cruel of me.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” he said, his tone serious. “None of this is your fault, Chastity.”
“It’s kind of you to try to make me feel better,” I said. “But let’s be honest. If I’d only followed my father’s directions and kept my lips and legs shut, then neither of us would be in this mess.”
“This isn’t a mess,” he said.
“No?” A dark laugh bubbled out of me, one filled with all the dread and tension that had been hanging over my head for the last twenty-four hours. “Then what the hell is it?”
But Matteo didn’t answer. Or say a single word. He didn’t make any sound at all.
The only thing he did was stare across the table at me.
Despite the fact we’d both had the same amount of wine, his dark gaze was so much steadier than mine. So much more intense .
I grazed my teeth over my bottom lip as I tried to pull my eyes away.
But I couldn’t.
The pull of his gaze was just too strong.
Matteo didn’t blink as his eyes locked with mine. Just the sight of him was enough to make me shiver.
It had to be the wine, but at that moment, I would have sworn that his gaze was a physical thing. That I could feel it moving over me. Caressing me. Stroking me and drawing me closer all at the same time.
The sensation was so overwhelming that I squirmed in my seat, unsure how to handle it. The expectant silence hanging between us didn’t help. If anything, it only strengthened his pull on me.
Eventually, I managed to look away. My gaze darted around the empty restaurant, looking for a place to settle. But there wasn’t any safe place to be found.
Not when I could feel him.
This was ridiculous. There was no mystical connection between me and Matteo. I couldn’t actually feel his gaze. It was just the wine muddying up my thoughts again.
The wine and a decade’s worth of pathetic, hopeless fantasies.
“It’s late,” I said, already starting to slide out of the booth. “We should go.”
“ No .” The moment I stood, Matteo was at my side, his hands gripping my shoulders. This close, he was so much taller that I had to crane my head back just to meet his gaze. “We’re not leaving. Not yet.”
“But we’re done with dinner,” I tried.
“True,” he said. “But I’m not done with you.”
I shook my head and felt the room slowly spin. Between the wine and the closeness of his body, I could barely think.
“I’m not in the mood to talk anymore,” I said.
His hands slid down from my shoulders and encircled my waist.
“Good. Because neither am I,” he said, lifting me up off the floor.
A startled gasp escaped my lungs as he set me down on the edge of the table, but it was cut off an instant later when his lips crashed down on mine. The taste of wine still clung to his tongue as it swept over my mouth.
I couldn’t resist drinking him in.
My hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer. His palms drifted down from my waist to my thighs, his fingers curling into the material of my dress and pushing it up.
Once my knees were exposed, he pushed them apart and slid into the gap.
The simple feel of my legs wrapped around his hips was far sexier than it had any right to be. The feel of his fine suit against my bare skin sent a shiver straight through me.
And the pressure of his groin pressing against mine? It was almost too much to take.
But that didn’t keep me from wanting more.
So much more.
The passion of his kiss and the power of his body lit a fire of pure desire inside me. A hunger I’d never felt before—one I couldn’t even name—took over, and I found myself grinding my hips against him just to feel more.
It didn’t take long for that pressure I’d felt before to start building again.
But this time, we weren’t in a private place. We were in the middle of a restaurant. An empty one—sure—but right outside those drawn curtains were the streets of Manhattan.
Over our labored breaths, I could make out the sounds of cars passing by. Of pedestrians on the sidewalk. Of life happening all around us.
“Matteo,” I struggled to say between gasps of breath. “We can’t do this here.”
“Why not?” he growled against my ear as his hand slipped down into the sliver of space between us.
A moan escaped my lips as his fingers found that spot again—the one that melted away my uncertainty and good sense. My back arched, and his kisses shifted from my mouth to the column of my neck, sending brand-new ripples of sensation out over my skin.
For a moment, I couldn’t think.
I could only clutch onto him. To the table. To anything as I tried to steady myself.
But somewhere in my frantic grasping, my hand brushed against one of the empty wine glasses, sending it crashing to the floor.
The sharp crack of shattering crystal was enough to bring me back to my senses, and I remembered what I’d been trying to say.
“This isn’t your bedroom, Matteo,” I reminded him. “We’re in a restaurant.”
“But we’re alone,” he told me between swipes of his tongue. “That’s all that matters.”
Oh God, I wanted to believe that.
It was beyond tempting to close my eyes, switch off all rational thought, and completely give myself over to the moment.
But in the next heartbeat, a loud laugh from a passerby drifted in through the windowpane. A distant car horn followed. The muffled cough of a stranger clearing his throat.
While it was true that no one could see us, that didn’t mean we were truly alone. We were still street-level in the middle of New York.
“But people might hear us,” I whispered.
His laugh was as dark and sensual as everything else he did.
“There’s no might ,” he rasped against my neck, his kisses moving lower with every breath. “With what I plan to do to you, everyone within three blocks of this place will hear you call my name.”
“Matteo—”
“Yeah, just like that,” he cut me off with a growl. “But louder . Much louder.”
It was hard to think when he talked like that. His words had a way of shutting down all but the most feral parts of me.
And when he finally slipped the silky scrap of fabric that apparently counted as underpants in the secular world down my legs, it was impossible to do anything but feel.
“You’re already so fucking wet,” he purred against my ear. “All I have to do is kiss you, and your body instantly responds. Do you have any idea how sexy that is?”
I bit into my lip as his fingers explored deep into my body. Even if I’d wanted to, I wouldn’t have been able to open my mouth to tell him that this time, it wasn’t his kiss that caused that heated rush between my legs.
Just locking eyes with him had been enough.
Just the promise of possible pleasure with Matteo and the heat inside me began to flow.
“I can’t wait any longer,” he said. “I have to have you.”
The power of those five simple words hitched the breath in my throat.
How many times had I dreamed of hearing him say that? How many nights had I spent tossing and turning as this kind of fantasy played out in my mind?
Too many.
And yet, somehow, I still wasn’t ready for when he reached for the fly of his pants, popping the button and sliding down the zipper in one fluid motion.
Oh God . This was happening.
It was really… really happening.
I closed my eyes, bit my lower lip, and tried to breathe.
But apparently, that wasn’t how it was done. Not with Matteo, at least.
“Look at me, Chastity,” he said, sliding one hand up my back and cupping the nape of my neck for support. “And tell me you want this.”
I’d never wanted anything more.
Not food. Not water. Not sleep. Not even air.
Nothing more than him.
“I want you inside me, Matteo.”
He didn’t make me wait.
With one tilt of his hips, I felt the pressure of his tip easing into my opening.
The sensation was so overwhelming, so profound, that I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t blink. Couldn’t look away from his brutally dark gaze as he pulled me close, touched his forehead to mine, and, with an almost painfully slow pace, pressed inside me.
Nothing I’d ever felt before, nothing I’d ever imagined, prepared me for the sensation of Matteo’s body inside mine.
The sense of fullness as the walls of my pussy stretched to accommodate his thickness. The way each stroke went deeper. Harder. The realization of just how big of a man he really was made my head spin.
This couldn’t be real. There was no way pleasure like this could exist in the ordinary world.
The closeness of his body. The electric awareness running through every nerve in my body. The crackle of intimacy between us. This was heaven, plain and simple.
There was no other answer.
This was true bliss.
“Oh God, Matteo,” I cried out as the tempo of his thrusts increased.
“That’s right.” His low moan rumbled in the air between us. “Say it again. Tell everyone who you belong to.”
Oh fuck .
How was it possible for his words to deepen the impact of his touch? How could they make the fire inside me so much hotter?
“Matteo!”
“ Louder .”
It was a command. Some deep animal part of me instinctually understood the importance of the moment and wanted to comply.
No—not just wanted to.
Needed to.
“God, yes. Matteo!” I cried out loud enough to fill all the empty space in the empty restaurant. Loud enough for my voice to slip through the gaps in the door and through the thin panes of glass and out into the street where anyone and everyone could hear. “ Yes ! Don’t fucking stop.”
And he didn’t stop.
He kept going. His hips thrusting and grinding against mine. His pace and intensity increasing until I felt tension—a wonderful kind of tension coiling so tightly inside me that I feared it might snap me in two.
And apparently, Matteo could feel it, too.
His grip on the back of my head constricted as my legs began to shake. “Let go and come for me.”
Another set of commands.
I couldn’t help but comply.
One last thrust and everything inside me shattered.
My pussy clenched tight around his shaft, pulsing and trembling as he filled every inch of me. I gasped for breath, crying out as pleasure rushed through my veins.
“ Fuck, yes ,” Matteo growled above me, his voice heavy as his body stiffened.
I was so certain he was about to join me, to be swept out into the same abyss of ecstasy and lose himself inside me.
But instead, at the last second, he jerked his hips back, sliding out of my body and leaving me empty as he spilled himself on the tablecloth beneath us.
When the worst of the shivers subsided, and my breathing settled, I risked looking him in the eye one more time.
“What happened,” I asked. “Why did you...”
“Pull out?” he asked, finishing the question for me.
I nodded.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have the words to describe what happened. Not even a bonafide saint could have hung around my cousins for more than five minutes and not come away with the vocabulary of a dockside streetwalker. The problem was the dull ache that had taken root in the center of my chest when he’d backed away.
I felt like I’d given my whole self to him, and inside me, there was a deep primitive need to feel him reciprocate in kind.
“You know why,” he said, helping me down off the table and zipping up his pants. “There can be consequences to unprotected sex, and I won’t risk it. Not with you.”
Suddenly, that dull ache turned into a piercing pain.
Did he really think so little of me?
“You think I’d trap you with a child?”
“Not at all.” He shook his head and ran his hands down the length of my dress, taking the time and care to smooth out the wrinkles. “I’m not the kind of man who can be trapped. But a baby would take all your choices away.”
My gaze drifted down to the floor as I slowly nodded. He was right.
Pregnancy would rip away what few choices I still had. I wouldn’t be able to take my final vows. I wouldn’t be able to return to my family.
The truth was, if that happened, I didn’t know what I’d do.
I’d let lust and desire get the best of me…again. I’d let my animal impulses guide my actions, and if it wasn’t for Matteo’s good sense, I could have found myself in a whole lot of trouble.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m grateful one of us was thinking clearly.”
His bark of laughter echoed off the walls.
“I wasn’t trying to be a gentleman by coming all over Andrea’s tablecloth.” He crooked a finger under my chin and forced my face up until I looked him in the eye. “I was being selfish.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
“I don’t want you to stay at the end of these two weeks because I knocked you up, Chastity,” he said. “I want you to stay because you can’t stand the thought of life without me.”